Blackman Kidnapper Heads to Jail for Life

After a decade, one of Japan’s most sensational courtroom dramas is coming to a close: Joji Obara is headed to prison for the rest of his life.

European Pressphoto Agency

A prison guard looks at prisoner sleeping in his cell at a Japanese prison.

Japan’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the 58-year-old Mr. Obara, convicted of kidnapping and mutilating Lucie Blackman, whose disappearance in Tokyo in 2000 had set off a nationwide search, as well as of raping nine other women and causing the death of one of them. (He was found not guilty of Ms. Blackman’s rape or murder, a shock in light of Japan’s extremely high conviction rate.)

From London, Ms. Blackman’s father, Tim Blackman, expressed satisfaction at knowing that Mr. Obara, “after leading his life of an evil fantasy for decades, will have been informed of the Supreme Court ruling, which means he will be taken from the relatively cushy detention center to a proper prison and the door will slam behind him,” according to Japanese news agency Kyodo.

It ended an excruciating 10-year journey for the family that began when Ms. Blackman, a 21-year-old working as bar hostess in Tokyo, vanished in July 2000. The seven-month search that ensued caught international headlines, with frequent media appearances by her parents and even a plea from Tony Blair, then prime minister of the U.K. It ended early in 2001 when Ms. Blackman’s body was found buried in a seaside cave in the beach town of Miura, in Kanagawa prefecture southwest of Tokyo.

The spot was just steps from a condominium owned by Mr. Obara, a millionaire real-estate developer who had already been arrested on charges of drugging and raping six women. In April 2001 charges related to Ms. Blackman’s death were added—after which searches of Mr. Obara’s condo unearthed thousands of homemade videotapes recording assaults on hundreds of women, both foreign and Japanese. In the end he was tried for raping and drugging nine women in addition to Ms. Blackman between 1992 and 2000, and causing the death of one.

The trial generated drama from the start. Mr. Obara’s legal team quit en masse moments before a scheduled hearing in October 2001, forcing the proceeding to be suspended for a year. And the verdict that finally emerged in April 2007 was a shock: The Tokyo District Court sentenced Mr. Obara to life in prison, the maximum punishment, for the crimes against the other nine women–but found him not guilty on all charges involving Ms. Blackman. The presiding judge said the court could not determine Mr. Obara had raped her as long as the cause of death was unknown.

Both sides appealed, Mr. Obara seeking to overturn the conviction for the one killing, as well as the sentence, arguing it was too severe, while the prosecution sought to overturn the one acquittal.

The Tokyo High Court gave the prosecution a measure of success in December 2008, finding Mr. Obara guilty of abandoning and damaging the body of Ms. Blackman. It sustained the acquittal on the other charges.

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